“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence — it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
— Peter Drucker
Dear Reader,
I burst through the door and opened fire.
At that moment, I was tasked with quelling an active shooter in a restaurant full of families, busboys, a chef and line workers. I was told there was a loud noise in the kitchen and a lot of shouting.
When I let the live rounds go… I hit the targets dead on. Three shots. Three kills.
My heart was racing. I couldn’t really tell what was going on. Then another loud bang and I was down.
Fiction?
Well, kind of.
I was doing a live fire exercise at a survival training camp somewhere in the hills east of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a five-day course. We learned martial arts defense tactics including hand-to-hand with a tac pen. We learned how to dress wounds with “whatever you got” in the field. We learned how to disassemble a Glock 9, clean it, put it back together and take it out to the shooting range, safely.
One of the instructors was an ex-Navy Seal sniper. Another actively trained SWAT teams in metro-Atlanta. A third guy had been responsible for showing Green Beret’s how to take care of their weapons in combat.
At the end of our training, they set up live fire exercises. We were given a scenario. Mine, as I mentioned, was a restaurant being molested by an active shooter. He was apparently entering the restaurant from the kitchen and causing a raucous.
Before you get too intrigued by the whole affair, the scene was constructed out of plywood walls and life-size photographs of people enjoying their meal, a waiter with some food on a dish… and a bad guy pointing a weapon pointed right at me. I missed the bad guy.
To the chagrin of the instructors, I burst into the “restaurant,” adrenaline infused, and… shot all three of the photographs depicting a father, mother and young child enjoying their dinner. To put it politely, they used my violent entrance, Glock a-blazing, as a teaching moment.
“When you’re handling live weapons,” the gun instructor said over and over, “you don’t want things to go all cattywampus.” Meaning, you gotta keep your wits about you. You train. You plan. You don’t get all bumfuzzled. They’re motto is, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Their point is when things get crazy, don’t lose your sh&t. Keep a cool head and act accordingly.
I’m going to expand upon this little allegory for the introduction of a book I’m writing tentatively called Bumfuzzled: What to Do When the Economy, Politics, Markets and Society All Go Cattywampus at the Same Time. It seems like an appropriate title for our age.
With that thought in mind, I asked Martin Armstrong, our guest this week, what individual investors like you should do when the economy, politics, the markets and society all go cattywampus.
“Last weekend,” Martin began his answer, “the nickel in the London market went completely berserk, and nickel was used for stainless steel.” Suddenly, Martin implies, average investors and consumers alike have become aware of base metals. And all the things they go into to make the modern world we depend on.
“We’re going to put these sanctions on Russia…” Martin continues “Do you realize what you have really done? You’ve got base metals going crazy, energy going crazy. We’re all connected globally. So shortages of energy in Europe are going to push the prices up even here. I don’t know if these people are completely stupid or what? It’s hard to say.” Martin goes on a bit of a tirade…
Tangible assets are rising right now. That’s what you see. Some people are paying millions of dollars for the first edition of a comic book. Houses, depending upon the area that you’re in. You’re seeing prices basically decline in areas of New York and California and rising in Texas and Florida. You also have mass migrations because of the COVID restrictions still. So, it’s very, very complex to say the least. And, you have to look at this from that perspective, and understand that we’re dealing with when a currency system fails, it’s the tangible assets that still have value… ok?
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Keep your eye on what’s important to you. There are opportunities to make money, but if you’re not a speculator by nature, this is a good time to keep to your own guns.
One of the interesting things about The Wiggin Sessions, they’re informal. For the most part, the folks we talk to are able to speak their minds in a very direct way. Whether you agree with him or not, Martin is worth listening to, here. He’s thought-provoking at the very least.
Follow your bliss,
Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Wiggin Sessions
P.S. “Yup,” reader J.D. responds to yesterday’s missive on the anniversary of the U.S. military’s exit from Vietnam, “our government loves to create work, control our lives and impinge on our freedoms.” He ends, “It’s a vicious circle.”
Glen D. adds:
Having been a Vietnam-era veteran and watching what has transpired over the last few years and witness the working of four administration, it’s my opinion that the entire joint chiefs and the war college should be fired for incompetence. The very same mistakes that were made in Vietnam were made in Afghanistan. The only difference was we paid 50 billion a year to Pakistan. Talk about failing to read our own history.
“Those who cannot remember the past,” we quote the modern philosopher George Santayana, “are condemned to repeat it.”
Our final selection for reader mail today was rare. It simply said: “Very good.” In a time when it’s so easy to be a hater online, it’s endearing to get a simple kudo. Merci.
That said, the name on the email was also simple. It read “Junk Mail,” meaning, to us our communications are sitting in the folder alongside “male enhancement” drug offers. If you haven’t done so, the best way to get Wiggin Sessions in a more reputable manner is by following these instructions.
P.P.S. Tomorrow, we will catch up with our buddy Sean Ring, editor of The Rude Awakening, who, curiously, spoke to us from a police station in the Philippines on his iPhone.
